The Great Shattered Halls Sit In of ’07

OMG. That’s really all I can say about this.

So the other day, the daily heroic quest was Shattered Halls. Sherm really, really needs Honor Hold rep (and badges) so I hop on and jump straight into the LFG pool to see if I could get a group before the Karazhan trip. I love the bastards in my guild, but none of them ever wanna do heroics. I suppose the addition of badges in Karazhan has killed a lot of desire to do them.

Anyway, the group is a rogue and huntard from the same guild that I was unfamiliar with, a holy priest and a prot paladin, heard of their guilds, unfamiliar with them though.. Gear is about on par for it, we should slug it out until the end. The start goes fine, as it usually does. A rogue lets us skip the slime pit which is nice, first boss goes down.

The gauntlet takes a couple of tries, as a heroic pug should. Keep frigging moving. No, if you die, we’re not out of combat long enough to rez you, release and run your lazy ass back. Third try finally gets through, the boss is nothing special, it’s like the same mob on normal, except now he’s got a name and thoughtfully gives up a badge.

We skip the gladiator guys on the side, the funny ogre boss goes down without much trouble as well. He sucks when he swaps aggro tables, but a paladin helps get him back. Ice Block does, too. Yay.

Now. The last boss. Already somewhat of a douche on normal, he’s probably the worst end boss I can think of on heroic. No, wait, the Mana Tombs end boss sucks more. But Warchief Kargath Bladefist is #2. On two attempts, he would charge me (not aggro based at all), then go right into his Blade Dance. On heroic, those 3 hits kill me. Yes, I suppose I could lrn2hitpoints, but still I’ve done this boss before. He’s hard, but he’s beatable. The second Blade Dance wipes the group. Also happened both times.

We run back and buff up after the second wipe. I think we’re ready to pull, then the following happens.

“We’re getting a warlock” (capitalization and apostrophe added by me, of course)
*You have been removed from the group
/s wtf?

The rogue and huntard bolt for the door to summon, having invited someone else in their guild to the group. The priest and paladin are all like “wow, that was f*cked up” and “sorry dude, wasn’t our call.”

I believe the rogue and huntard assumed that one the following would then happen:

1) I would shrug it off, and port myself out.
2) I would get the “you are not in this group’s instance” and get teleported out in one minute.

Neither of the above was going to happen (in heroics, you get a raid ID and are saved as soon as a boss dies). In protest over what just happened, I staged the first ever Shattered Halls Sit In. The priest and paladin then joined me in solidarity. I don’t know if they left on their own or were also removed by the rogue and huntard. Since bad stuff happens when you try to put a sixth person into a five man instance, I think it took them a bit to figure out what was going on.

And those were the nicer ones. A forum post went up while this was going on. Within minutes, I was given a link to a post elsewhere in the thread. Turns out, they’ve pulled this exact same stunt before. What a trash guild. Things like this really make me regret rolling Alliance at times. I wouldn’t let these bastards win.

The Sit In continued. I went afk for about 20 minutes and had dinner. While I was away, rogue stealthed back to the instance, aggroed the boss and then Vanished, killing me.

“haha u died”
“Okay, and?”
“its funny”

Here was their second fatal assumption, ladies and gentlemen. They thought that at some point, I would automatically release my spirit so they could zone in and steal the instance from me. While, yes, it’s true that you have six minutes to do so when you’re out in the world and you die, that is not the case in instances and has not been for some time.

I started getting profanity spammed by other members of this horrible excuse for a guild. While I’ve got a full /ignore list (I have a low tolerance for idiots. I make sure I can never see any /yells. Saves a lot of time and ignore space.), right clicking someone to Report Spam basically does the same thing, which is nice.

“I see on the forums you’ve done this before. Sorry I ruined your plan.”
“what forums”

Finally, the guild master began whispering me. He seemed legitimately clueless to what was going on. I asked him what kind of guild he runs if he lets his members pull this type of crap. He asked me to get on their vent to discuss it. I said this isn’t something that has to be taken onto vent. He then began offering me strategies for the boss. I don’t need a freaking strategy. I was the one to get charged, which immediately went into a Blade Dance which I took the brunt of and was dead before I could Ice Block or any heals could go off. It happens. It’s a heroic boss, it’s supposed to be hard.

Two hours into Shattered Halls Sit In ’07, it was time for Karazhan. I am still lying, dead, at the bottom of the stairs to the boss. I had explained to my guild members what was going on and they thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. I also mentioned it in the custom channel that some of my guild uses with a bunch of friends we’ve got in other guilds from the remnants of a guild alliance from way back in the day. We cooked up ideas on how else I could make the most of this.

“I have a friend in Honor Hold. Give them 200g and I’ll release.”
“lol were reporting u for extortion”

Darn, I was all set to release for a mere 100g, too.

While my guild is nine-manning Attumen trash (and eventually Attumen himself), about two and a half hours into the event, one of the stealthed mobs and wolf pat respawn, immediately eating the rogue. who was still stealthed next to me, waiting for me to release. I turn around, and the last two trash mobs before the boss himself have respawned, so I’m guessing it’s a full trash repop.

I have won. Satisfied (and since they were almost at Moroes), I release, corpse run, hearth to repair and grab some consumables and am summoned to Karazhan all in a matter of minutes.

“r u out of the instance yet”
“I am. Enjoy clearing all the trash again.”

I commend you for refusing to give in to this display of idiocy. Having been in my share of bad groups (not yet on heroics), I can only wonder what regular instances would be like if they gave raidIDs so I could pull this sort of thing every time someone decided to ditch me since it’s somehow always the healers fault.

It may have been a hilarious ass move, but their move was more assified. Kudos to you

I would have sworn that I read recently if you swap players in a Heroic, it turns into a Raid Group (since you now have >5 players with the Raid ID), and no one gets credit. This only happens for 5-man Heroics, IIRC. I wish I could recall where I read that–might have been Ratshag, or BBBB…some other blogger/reader may remember.

In any case, congrats on sticking to your guns! (BTW, were you ever contacted by a GM? I’m betting not.)

Heh – that was sweet. :) I have a paralyzing fear of PuGs for this very reason. People are, on the whole, dicks. Many of them are cool, but for the most part they bite ass. Good on you for socking them in the teeth.

LOL. you had the right to do that and i approve. i hate groups like that and i even go to the who and look up on armoury to find thier GM and whisper him and cuss him out and then i go my guild and fellow friends never to group with that guild. check me out sometime and leave me a comment!

Well. I admire your persistence in the face of idiot-hole-ness! Congratulations on a mighty Win for Truth and Justice. I hope you feel well satisfied with the outcome. Those jerks need to learn that you don’t jack around with people in ID Locking instances.